“Comparing my experience of Otherside Land to PuzlWorld Land”
I’ve been involved for months in an under the radar project now called PuzlWorld. In the beginning it was PuzlPunks — The project started out as more of a game to create Puzl Punk PFPs by opening packs (NFTs that looked like a pack of cards) and getting trait NFTs. You would then use those traits to assemble personalized CryptoPunks like PFPs.
I free minted the project in early December one late night during degen hours. However, we weren’t able to build our first PuzlPunk until mid January, because much was still under development. A lot of people lost faith in the project during the time you couldn’t build punks, so the packs hit the hidden folders of many holders (tongue-twister ha)! When the builder experience went live it was a glorious moment… Even though there were bugs in the software (missing images, etc) I was forgiving.<- Likely because I am a former developer who is aware of the amount of effort it takes to build complex seemingly simple software.
I was hooked building, because it really played on my creativity. There are a lot of really cool traits, above and beyond what Crypto Punks have. At this time I was really just building for fun. The floor on the project wasn’t great, but the one thing it did over ALL my other NFT projects is that it got me heavily engaged in the product. It was more than just a picture and a promise. The team also listened heavily to my feedback, which was huge.
There were some bugs (and still are), but I persevered through., The ripping the packs experience isn’t animated and wowing like Parallel or Topshot. It’s super basic and requires you to go to your inventory to see what was minted. It also requires relative to the cost of the packs a decent amount of gas to open —~ $20-$50 during gas ranging from 20–45 GWEI.
The process of hunting specific traits reminds me of back in the day when I would buy and trade Magic the Gathering cards that I obtained from packs, with the purpose of completing a specific deck I had in mind. What the Puzl developers have built is definitely triggering something psychologically addicting. I truly believe the floor price and the fact that opening a pack could cost more than the pack itself at times, were the main reasons this project wasn’t picking up more steam. Low floor projects send off mixed signals to investors.
During this time of building punks, I was also building up relationships in the PuzlWorld community. This was also a season where pretty much every “Blue Chip” mooned heavily, except for Doodles… the one “Blue Chip” I got in at a relatively “low” price of 2 Eth. At the time of this writing it’s a bit over 20 Eth finally. As much as I love my Doodle, something about Puzl though kept me way more engaged… Plus I couldn’t really afford any other Blue Chips!
The huge turning point for Puzl was when the developer dropped a huge positive bomb about the future of the project - PuzlPunks was to become PuzlWorld, which would be a full interactive metaworld experience with gameplay… How does it work? Players claim land, use Puzl integrated NFTs to build up the world (similar to SimCity), and provide goods and services to NPCs agents to fuel the economy and earn Ethereum doing so. Granted this isn’t all live yet, but at the time of this writing you can claim your land. Furthermore the estimate for launch of this is within the next 60–90 days of this writing. Read more about it here: https://www.puzl.world/about/puzlworld
WTF?! How could this not blow up? I was excited.
I had already amassed tons of packs from the free mint, and was buying more on faith. I purchased packs for as low as 0.002 and at the time of this writing they are 0.035 — That’s a 17.5x gain. lol. However once you factor the fact gas, it’s more like a 10x gain. The crazy thing is- As the packs get ripped, less become available, so I have to postulate that over time the pack floor has to increase due to diminishing supply. The only thing that would negate this is if the project stopped. I don’t see this happening, as the developers team keeps working tirelessly and the community (albeit small) is highly engaged.
Let’s jump to March now and introduce beginning of “The Otherside”. Yuga Labs, creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), acquires CryptoPunks sending shockwaves to the community. This made Yuga the undisputed heavyweight in the space. It also knocked the steam out of the whole Phunk community and other punk derivatives, because CryptoPunk holders now had access to their IP. at. Yuga then launches this mysterious site, somethingisbrewing.xyz, where they called for people to KYC (Know Your Customer) to participate. The crazy thing is it wasn’t even clear what giving up your identity was granting future access for. I KYC’d on one of my wallets due to FOMO. I wasn’t about to miss Bored Apes next drop. I faded acquiring a Mutant Ape at 4Eth because I wasn’t a huge fan of their “Art”. The sentiment in the community was whatever Yuga/BAYC does is a money printer and you cannot miss.
So Mid April we start receiving trickles of more details that at the end of the month BAYC land (aka The Otherside) will be launching. There are talks about liquidity being drained out the market, etc. The Bored Apes got air dropped a shit ton of APECoin which was to fuel the new economy of Yuga initiatives. Claiming APECoin gave Bored Ape holders instantly six-figures ($100K+) worth of additional value, driving more hype for the what’s next.
My dumbass waits to buy APECoin pretty much at the height of it (over $20), due to liquidity reasons, and really waiting to get more info on how the release of the land was going to work. It was really frustrating how the information was disseminated. I get that mystery creates hype and demand, but this added to the fuel of disappointment that was to occur later.
So closer to the launch I am now sitting on 920 Ape, which cost me about 7.5 Eth. I was betting big… I was going to try to acquire 3 lands. Turns out after more details ,we learn it’s going to sell out in wave 1 so I’d be only able to get 2 lands. I’m not sure why I didn’t convert my extra APE back to Etherium but I didn’t. I learn that the launch is at 9pm on a Saturday when I have family over for my daughters birthday…F… I reach out and ask a friend I trust to try to buy for me via my account. He tells me there will be a gas war and to load up another 2 Etherium. I’m like F this is getting expensive. Mind you during this time I had been claiming land on PuzlWorld for gas only, because every PuzlPunk you create gives you 9 plots of land to claim in their world. NINE I know it sounds crazy…
A Big contrast huh? A stressful Otherside mint situation vs a stress-free situation when claiming PuzlWorld land plots. In the end my buddy was successful minting me 2 plots of land for 1.8 Eth in gas, making my all in cost per land at an astronomical 3.4 Eth per. Guess what at the time of the writing the floor is now…. 3.3 Eth… FML. Clearly I didn’t sell yet. I decide like a dumbass not to sell when the floor was pumping post mint to ranges of 7–8 Eth. I was thinking… maybe I should sell one and ride the other? I then thought knowing my luck I’d sell the rare one. The lure of holding to reveal was there was a chance to get a Koda. That’s where they suckered us in. I remember even mentioning it to friends, that I had a suspicion due to the large supply that if you didn’t hit a Koda, this could be a situation where you actually take an L. People clowned me for saying that. I wanted a Koda. It was my time of course! All these projects I’ve invested in over months and months and I have yet to pull a good valuable rare. That’s what I told myself. It’s my time… The RNG told me otherwise.
So long story short… No Koda. No Artifact. Floor hugging lands. No ability to pick where my land is. On top of everything else, I hear that the utility for the land via a game or whatever won’t be ready for a year. Wow. What a stark contrast to PuzlWorld. I’ve invested 9.5 Eth into the Yuga ecosystem if you count the gas plus the excess APECoin. Full disclosure, I am one of the biggest holders in PuzlWorld with over 300 packs, and 170+ built punks and I haven’t even spent that much. Such radically different experiences.
P.S. I’m not here to shill PuzlWorld or to trash talk The Otherside. I legit hope both projects see success.
My Otherside Land below.
